Typical Parts Of A Research Paper: A Guide For Dummies

Creating a highly organized and well-structured research paper helps in structuring one’s thoughts, especially with longer papers. While writing a scientific paper, it is important to follow certain rules and adjust one’s writings to the academic format. Important and integrate parts of a typical research paper are discussed here,

Title:

The title is the index of the paper, it is to be specific and indicate the problem the research paper addresses. The title of the paper could be in two parts or three parts sentence.

Abstract:

The abstract is the jest of the entire paper in a nut shell and is been used by readers to quickly review and understand the overall content of the paper. There are strict restrictions on the word limit of the abstract and in journals it need not exceed 200 words. The abstract offers the complete synopsis of the paper and starts with introducing the specific research topic, explain the methodology through which research was conducted and offer a brief statement on the findings and results of the research. It is written last and is placed in the first page of the paper.

Introduction:

This part of the research paper deals with introducing the overall topic and offering basic information on the background of the research. It focuses on specific research questions concerned with the topic and throws light on the focus and purpose of the paper.

Review of literature:

The main purpose of this segment is to describe what research has been done on this topic in the past and relate it with the research problem specifically. It should collaborate both previous literature and the new idea that is been researched. It is also important to include major theories that are relevant to the topic from credible and reliable sources.

Research methodology

This section focus on the research methodology and design that has been followed n completing the study Techniques of data collection, analysis and interpretation are discussed here. It affords enough details and scope for its readers to replicate the study if needed.

Results of the study:

Results of analysis are offered with statistical evidence, how it is been represented depends on the nature of the study. This section makes use of graphs and tables to substantiate results. Though this section discusses the results, it does not discuss their significance.

Conclusion:

This section discusses the results of data analysis and presents results based on the type of study. The hypothesis that is framed are validated and answered at the section where results are interpreted. Scope for future research is also discussed here.

Bibliography:

The list of references makes the research paper complete. It should cover alphabetized list of all sources that are been utilized in the academic paper. APA, MLA or Harvard formats are commonly used for writing references.